BLW 2020: A Year in Review
Wow 2020 was a doozy but babies still gotta eat!! Despite it being a rough year in many ways, we accomplished a lot in helping families get a safe start to solid foods. Here are a few of this year’s wins…
Celebrating the Year That Was
Each year on New Year’s Eve day I like to take a look at the goals I set exactly 1 year ago. I’ve been working exclusively in baby-led weaning as a dietitian for 4 years now and it’s crazy to see how business goals change.
At the beginning, my goal was to help just one family that wasn’t my own. I got really amped on BLW after having so much fun helping my quadruplet babies learn how to eat using baby-led weaning. We had struggled a LOT with traditional spoon-feeding with our oldest...but BLW was truly a godsend as far as ease, convenience and our babies’ biological abilities went.
In 2016 I created the 100 FIRST FOODS approach to starting solids with baby-led weaning. I did 100 FIRST FOODS with my quadruplets, and then with my twins Gus & Hannah (…Gus & Hannah were actually the impetus for starting my Instagram account @babyledweanteam where I documented all of their 100 first foods.)
So yes BLW has helped MY family immensely, and since I began working exclusively in this field, my goals have shifted to wanting to share those same successes and the feelings of confidence that come with raising an independent eater...but to do it with YOUR families.
It’s All About YOUR Babies!
In 2020 my overarching goal was to shift the content in my work away from my own experience with baby-led weaning (...having done BLW with 6 of our 7 kids) and now focus exclusively on YOUR babies.
After having 7 kids in a span of under 4 years, I am beyond done having babies! 😁 My youngest, the twins Gus & Hannah turned 2 this year, and although they were the guinea pigs for the fine-tuning of my 100 FIRST FOODS program, I really wanted to start showcasing all of the families in my community and the successes they were having with BLW.
If you follow me on Instagram every day there I share 3 different posts in my feed:
A short 1 minute BLW mini training on a topic I get asked frequently about
A photo, carousel or video post featuring a community member’s baby & their story, struggle, success or new food feature
A “takeaway” frame with link to a new feeding expert interview on my podcast or gagging video or allergic reaction video…I also share downloads, discount codes, recipes & individual food highlights here too
It takes a lot of time to get permission from parents to tell their story, to share the photos, to explain what’s happening in the caption and then of course to answer all of the comments…and I wanted to share a special thank you to all of the parents who send me incredibly moving content. I wish I could share it all. I will keep trying to do so.
And a special thanks to Katelynn Sasaki, MS, RD who I have the good fortune of working with and who helps with a lot of these Instagram efforts. We can’t answer every DM or every comment but Katelynn & I sure as heck try!
Over 80K Workshop Attendees 🙌
I remember being REALLY frustrated about not knowing HOW to do baby-led weaning when I was trying to figure it out for the firs time. And so another overarching goal of my business is to help make BLW easy & doable for parents.
One of the ways I strive to do that is through my free online workshop called “BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS: How to get your baby to try 100 foods before turning 1 without YOU having to spoon-feed purees or buy pouches!”
This year we had over 80,000 attendees on the free online workshop. I give away my 100 FIRST FOODS list to everyone on the workshop, so that’s also 80K of you out there trying all these new foods with your baby which is so inspiring!
If you want to check out the workshop, you can sign up for this week’s free workshop times.
And I have to give a huge shoutout to Lauren Coull on my team who is the master spreadsheet lady and the only reason I know statistics like how many people took a particular workshop in a calendar year. Lauren is our Growth Strategist and numbers guru and the only person I know who likes Google Analytics.
Lauren’s dog Avo (…short for Avocado, the PERFECT first BLW food!) was also the inspiration behind the BLW + Dog + Heart sticker we use ALL over Instagram. You can find my stickers by searching “BLWT” in the GIF tool inside of IG stories. Thanks Katelynn for also making those - another great addition from 2020!
Programming that YOU Picked
We map out our content for the year pretty heavily in December. But this year threw us for a loop with COVID.
In March just as lockdown was beginning we pivoted & started a free 10-day email challenge called the 10-DAY BLW PANTRY CHALLENGE.
It was so much fun to see all of your babies eating new foods that you already had at home, and I think it made the idea of hunkering down a little less terrible as the pandemic was taking off.
In October we added another new program, a free 5-day MINI CRASH COURSE we called BLW MEAT WEEK.
This was 5 days of focus on a different cut of meat each day, with ideas on how to prep & serve safely & new recipes for your babies to try out.
We partnered with BUTCHER BOX for this promo and it was so cool to see all of your babies trying out their new meats. I don’t do many corporate or brand partnerships but as a real-life Butcher Box subscriber & fan, I really do appreciate the high quality meat and seafood that shows up on my doorstep every month.
Click the link if you want to check out the current Butcher Box promotion of the month (this is my affiliate link).
Having grass-fed meat & sustainably farmed seafood arrive at your house is great for reminding you to try new foods with your baby. But it also works well when you’re in quarantine and can’t go anywhere too!
My Quarantine Baby: The BLW Podcast
People always ask, “Why don’t you do YouTube or TikTok or Pinterest?” , etc...and I’m one of those content creators who is only comfortable on the platforms I am comfortable on.
I read emails.
I use Instagram.
I listen to podcasts.
That’s it. And prior to 2020 my 2 main avenues of content distribution were always email marketing & Instagram.
I work every day to show up for everyone on my email list and in my IG community, but as an avid podcast follower, I also knew that the content I develop would do really well on a podcast.
Yes, there is something to SEEING the foods prepared a certain way and a baby actually learning to eat, but a LOT of information about starting solids transfers very well via audio.
Even pre-pandemic my 2020 goal was always to launch a baby-led weaning podcast. My team and I worked hard in the first few months to get everything together & off the ground. And even with everyone working remotely during the pandemic, we hit our Mother’s Day launch date and the BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast was born.
The podcast has for sure been my quarantine baby. My real babies are a LOT of work and I have to admit I’ve loved throwing myself into this project. Getting to talk to other adults in interviews and with all of you through the weekly episodes and reading your reviews and feedback has been so inspiring and helps keep me going.
If you want to read a little bit about the history and launch of the BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast, it’s all written up in a blog post.
Each week I release 2 new podcast episodes: a mini-BLW training on Monday and then the Thursday episode is an interview with a guest or feeding expert.
We closed the year out with 88 episodes, over 250K downloads and we are consistently in the top 20 podcasts in Apple Podcasts Parenting Category. We even went as high as #2 (...watch out Dr. Laura! Just kidding...but she is ALWAYS in that darned #1 spot!)
There’s a whole website dedicated to the BABY-LED WEANING MADE EASY podcast that Katelynn has set up beautifully. You can see all of the amazing experts who have kindly shared their time and talents with our audience as well as link out to all of their resources.
If you want to subscribe to the podcast you can click this link and it will take you right there to whatever podcast player is loaded on the device where you are reading this.
A Few More Highlights
This is getting a little long (...sorry, I’m a talker) so I’ll wrap it up here with a few other highlights from the year:
We taught the 100 FIRST FOODS digital program to 3 different cohorts this year. I have the great pleasure of co-teaching this program with my friend & colleague Dawn Winkelmann, MS, CCC-SLP who I absolutely LOVE working with!
We added 4 new free downloads for our audience. I’ll link to them below; you do have to enter your email address to get them but I never reshare that & you can always unsubscribe from my updates if you’re tired of hearing from me 😁
We overhauled the entirety of my signature program THE SELF-FEEDING BABY. This was a massive undertaking and there are now 25 new training videos + tons of new bonus content inside of this groundbreaking BLW training course that I have had the pleasure of teaching to tens of thousands of families over the years 💕
My Instagram account @babyledweanteam rounds the year out with 166K followers strong and we got a blue verified checkmark this year too. I don’t even know why that matters but we had to apply like 5 separate times before it happened, so celebrate everything!
Still don’t have it in my old bones to do Tik Tok - despite urging from everyone on my team...but we did start tackling reels on IG. And thank you to my fabulous babysitter turned Reels guru Cori Gerstein for making that happen!
Here are the 4 new free downloads from this year if you want to check them out:
What’s Up Next for 2021?
Who knows what the next year will hold?
Of course we don’t now, but here are a few goals of mine for the BLW business in 2021:
PODCAST: release 100 more episodes & aiming for 1 million total downloads by the end of 2021. I have a really special 2-part interview series planned for you to celebrate our first 100 episodes & can’t wait to share that!
COURSES: offer 100 FIRST FOODS to 3 more cohorts this year. I’m also co-creating and co-teaching an upcoming ALLERGY course and a CHOKING course with 2 separate experts. I’m really excited to tell you more about these when the time nears!
SOCIAL: going to keep plodding along with 3 posts a day. I know I should outsource but I really enjoy doing my own IG and writing my own emails and blog posts and I want to continue doing that. Might even take on Tik Tok, but only if my fabulous (younger) helpers promise to do all of the heavy lifting!
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION: we will continue to strive to provide content for and to showcase babies of all backgrounds, races and ability. Our efforts in these areas are laid out in this blog post from earlier in the year…and illustrated with this beautiful graphic drawn by Katelynn on our team:
Thank you to everyone here who helps make all of this great content available to parents around the world. Lauren we are ever grateful for your visionary strategy and nerdy numbers…Katelynn for your tireless community support, nutrition expertise and beautiful graphics…Jenn for your kicka** funnels and important friendship since I started this business 4 years ago…and Genieva a new and much needed addition this year who helps organize this sh*tshow. Your husband Jeremy is an amazing videographer who I know would rather be filming high end houses than self-feeding babies but we can’t wait to meet your beautiful new baby girl + watch her grow and thrive and learn how to eat in 2021!!
Lefter and Jess and Angela, thank you for doing work in the middle of our night so it’s ready in the morning when we wake up… and Emmanuel your spectacular podcast editing and oversight has taken us to the next level.
I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with all of you!
And I’m also indebted to the trove of dietetic interns who help us out on a nearly full-time basis now. Pandemic has been hard on you guys getting your internship hours in, but you’re doing an amazing job shifting to remote help and I am so glad you are the future of dietetics!
I know we don’t know what the next year holds.
But one thing is for sure: there will be a whole bunch of babies who will turn 6 months old. And their parents and caregivers will be looking for credible information on how to give them a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weaning.
And I will be here for you! Thank you all for letting me join in on your baby’s baby-led weaning journey and here’s to a happy and healthy 2021!! 🥂
